Questions

What are the essential songs for a first-rate jukebox?

If you were to find yourself locked up for the rest of your days with a trio of fourteen-year-olds and a bunch of musical instruments and amplifiers would you join the band or bash out your brains with a tambourine?

Have you ever heard clearly conspiring voices outside your bedroom window at four a.m. and felt yourself utterly devoid of curiosity or alarm?

Was there, I often wonder, a great pioneer of profanity? Who coined all those marvelous curse words, or first used them in a pejorative sense? I’d like to make that asshole’s acquaintance. I’d love to have known that fucker. I’d be proud as hell to shake that shitheel’s hand.

Chandler or Hammett?

Chaplin or Keaton?

Cary Grant or Jimmy Stewart?

Fitzgerald or Hemingway?

Basie or Ellington?

Frank Sinatra or Tony Bennett?

Rolling Stones or the Beatles?

Charlie Watts or Ringo Starr?

Replacements or Husker Du?

Howard Hawks or Preston Sturges?

Wodehouse or Waugh?

Spring or Fall?

Audrey Hepburn or Grace Kelly?

New York or Paris?

Sherman or Grant?

Sam Phillips or Phil Spector?

Lewis or Martin?

Williams or Dimaggio?

Mantle or Mays?

Leonard or Duran?

Mitchum or Lancaster?

SCTV or SNL?

Maurice Sendak or Dr. Seuss?

Baseball or football?

Beethoven or Bach?

Mozart or Mahler?

Joe Strummer or Mick Jones?

Costello or Presley?

Milton or Dante?

Nancy or Sluggo?

Pepsi or Coke?

Cat or dog?

Now or later?

Friend or foe?

Yes or no?

This or that?

Who or who?

What or what?